How can Australia's IT industry punch above its weight?

The current economic turbulence has created a challenging environment for business leaders, with many organisations facing pressures to cut costs, streamline operations and prove return on investments. But while many business functions are operating on reduced budgets, IT spending in Australia is forecast to grow 5.8% in 2023.

Heads of IT are now faced with increased pressure as organisations turn to them for greater optimisation of tools and processes, growth and service experience to accelerate business growth and improve service experience for both customers and employees, all while having fewer resources.

However, in today’s dynamic world, Australia’s IT industry is still faced with a major hurdle — the slow uptake in digital transformation and improving productivity. So how can heads of IT in Australia fix this problem and punch above its weight?

The challenges faced by Australia’s IT industry

Aggregating data from the IT industry across over 118 million unique tickets and 7400 organisations of all sizes in 100 countries, Freshworks recently released its third annual Freshservice Service Management Benchmark Report. The report helps organisations identify the performance of service desk processes, how they’re impacting overall business goals and identify areas for improvement.

According to the report, Australia and New Zealand rank second out of the six regions globally in customer satisfaction for the second year in a row with a rating of 97% (just below North America which has a rating of 98%). Customer satisfaction is critical for business success as it leads to greater customer retention, higher lifetime value and a stronger brand reputation.

While the ANZ region fared well in customer satisfaction, ANZ businesses are recorded to be the slowest in responding to customers, taking the longest time to assign a ticket (taking 21.33 hours) and slowest in providing a first response to customers (taking 11.89 hours). This pales in comparison to Asia–Pacific, which takes the lead among all regions, assigns a ticket and provides a first response at 9.35 hours and 10.46 hours respectively.

The recent federal Budget highlights that, while Australian businesses increasingly adopt emerging technologies, the country still lags behind others — including the US — in areas like cloud computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

So how can Aussie organisations leverage new tools such as AI and automation that allow workers to do more with less, optimise their processes and increase the productivity of employees across all functions?

Leveraging emerging technologies such as AI and virtual agents

AI and automation play a significant role in resolving common queries and issues. Organisations should look to incorporate a mix of technologies such as natural language processing (NLP), chatbots and intelligent ticket processing, which can help provide relevant information to employees and end users. This can help result in faster resolution of common queries or issues and ultimately improve digital transformation by automating business processes, streamlining workflows and freeing up agents’ time to focus on more strategic work.

According to the report, AI-powered virtual agents have successfully resolved 46% of all tickets, while automated bots have reduced the average resolution time by 57%. As organisations look to onboard and adopt AI and automation into its operations, democratising AI by empowering non-technical personnel to build sophisticated models using low-code or no-code platforms is crucial in the mass adoption of modern automation. AI-enabled processes play a vital role in optimising product quality, streamlining operations and maximising asset utilisation across various environments, ultimately improving the industry’s performance.

The future of Australia’s IT industry

AI and automation have been proven effective in supporting and improving business productivity. Many businesses now see the potential benefits of AI and how it can complement humans to offer better and more personalised customer experiences while building long-lasting and impactful impressions.

Australia has a strong track record of innovation in the IT sector. By leveraging the right tools and technologies such as AI and automation, Australia’s IT industry remains bright and well positioned to thrive and improve in the years to come.

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